


half agony, half hope

by noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mansfield Park AU, Slow Burn, but you don't need to know it to understand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth/pseuds/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth
Summary: After the death of his disgraced mother, Jon Snow is taken in by his uncle's family, the Starks of Winterfell. He grows up alongside his cousins, including the beautiful and kind-hearted Sansa, but knowing he can never truly be their equal, he fears he has little choice but to leave the place he's come to call home.Inspired by Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know Mansfield Park isn't everyone's favorite Austen novel, but the premise fits so well with Jonsa. This should be a lot more fun and romantic though! I promise! (That said, I took my title from Persuasion because MP really doesn't have many quotable lines.)
> 
> Also: In this chapter I steal and adapt a few chunks of text/dialogue from Austen, most notably Benjen's big speech about cousin marriages, which was the first inspiration for this fic, and Catelyn's speech about preserving distinctions between the children.

About twenty years ago, Miss Catelyn Tully, the eldest daughter of the late Mr Hoster Tully, married Sir Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell.

It was a providential match for both parties, though there was no true affection between them. Miss Tully’s only brother, Edmure, had decided to take a wife of his own, and though Miss Tully had heartily approved of her brother’s choice of bride, she nevertheless lamented that she must turn over the management of the household to her new sister. Despite Mrs Roslin Tully’s protests that Miss Tully’s help was invaluable, Miss Tully herself felt her own uselessness keenly — but marriage, she knew, would once more make her mistress of a house of her own. 

For Sir Eddard, the necessity of the marriage resulted from the untimely death of his older brother, whose sudden expiration without wife or issue elevated Eddard from a simple soldier to a lord. As a second son, he’d not been prepared for the management of an estate such as Winterfell, and so he’d sought a practical and intelligent wife to aid him in his duty and provide him with heirs.

The match had been suggested by Sir Jon Arryn, a trusted friend of Sir Eddard’s late father and recent husband to Miss Tully’s sister, Mrs Lysa Arryn, and when Sir Eddard met the lady in question he was most pleased by her. All of the North and the Riverlands proclaimed the union a great match, and after a brief honeymoon on the continent, Lady Catelyn Stark settled in at Winterfell to better acquaint herself with her handsome home, extensive estate, and solemn husband.

The Starks were a prominent family, older than the Tullys and more insular, and it took some time for Catelyn to stop feeling like an outsider to the place and the family.

Sir Eddard had two siblings yet living: a younger brother away at school whom Catelyn had yet to meet; and a younger sister, Lyanna, who at fifteen was not yet old enough to come out into society. Catelyn tried to befriend the girl, but she had a restless, wild spirit, and little patience for the mundanities of household management. She longed to be in society; she longed also for freedom. She took her horse out daily when the weather was fair, and when it was not, she paced around the house like an angry cat, paying no mind when Catelyn tried to coax her into sitting by the fire to embroider or practicing her fingerwork on the piano.

After four months, Catelyn suggested to Sir Eddard that they send Lyanna to stay at Riverrun for a time. The mild climate would suit her temperament better than the dreary gray of the North, and even if it did not, perhaps a brief sojourn and new acquaintances would curb the worst of her discontent. The new Mrs Tully, only a few years older than Lyanna, would no doubt dote on the girl. 

Lyanna was enthusiastic about the proposal. For the first time since the marriage, she treated Catelyn as a sister, with unprecedented warmth, and her usual sullenness faded to near-palpable hope. When Lyanna begged her brother leave to make the trip, her elder brother frowned for a long while but eventually acquiesced to her wishes.

It was a mistake.

A letter from Edmure arrived for Catelyn late one afternoon, some weeks after Lyanna had gone to Riverrun, and when she read it, her heart nearly stopped in her chest. Lord Rhaegar Targaryen, heir to the dukedom of Dragonstone, had been visiting Riverrun on some business; there, he had met the charming Lyanna Stark, a very pretty girl nearly a decade his junior, and had summarily ruined her. They had run off together, no one knew where. All that was certain was that they could not elope, for Rhaegar Targaryen was already married.

Sir Eddard rode for Riverrun that very day. With Edmure’s help, Sir Eddard tracked down his sister in the Westerlands, and by means Catelyn could not imagine, shamed the duke into making what amends were possible. As he could not marry her himself, Lord Targaryen offered up one of the men in his service as a husband for Lyanna; though the man had little money of his own, he came from a respectable family, the Snows, and if he married Lyanna, he would keep her from ruin. Sir Eddard saw no choice but to agree.

Mr and Mrs Snow wed in a small ceremony where her brother served as witness, and afterwards set up a house in the far south of Dorne, near Salt Shore. The Snows received a yearly allowance of five hundred dragons from Rhaegar Targaryen, and Lyanna ceased all contact with her brother, whom she could not forgive for pressing her into the marriage. Within the year, however, Mr Snow wrote to Sir Eddard to tell him that his sister had given birth to a son. He wrote also to Lord Targaryen, requesting an increased allowance in light of these circumstances.

Nine years passed without intercourse between brother and sister, until one day, a notice arrived at Winterfell telling of Lyanna Snow’s death. She had died on the birthing bed and her child, the trueborn son of Mr Snow, had gone with her.

“Let us send for the boy,” said Benjen Stark, now a captain in the Night’s Watch who was stationed nearby. He looked between his brother and his sister-in-law. “He’s our nephew. Let us send for him.”

Catelyn had always felt some sense of guilt for her part in Lyanna’s fate. Though Ned (for he _was_ Ned now, her Ned, no longer Sir Eddard) did not blame her in the least, telling her that Lyanna had always been willful and wild, Catelyn could not help but wish she had never sent Lyanna south, or at least that she had not entrusted her into her brother’s careless hands. Taking the boy in might go some way toward making amends.

Yet it was not as simple as that. She had to think of her own children, her two sons, yes, but her two daughters in particular. The boy was a bastard, even if he did not know it, and even if he were not, he was well beneath her daughters’ station in life. What if the girls were to fall in love with him, or he with one of them? Such things happened every day. It could not be permitted.

However, no sooner had she begun to state her objections when Benjen interrupted:

“I understand you perfectly, and I know you must be concerned with the propriety of the thing, but I do not think it will go as you imagine. Give the boy an education and introduce him into society, and when he grown, we shall find him a living that is appropriate to him. You’re thinking of your daughters — but you must see that, of all things upon earth, that is the least likely to happen, brought up as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it.” 

Catelyn thought then of her own family’s ward, Petyr Baelish, a little boy who’d imagined himself in love with her for many years. Still, she had certainly never been so foolish as to return his love, for he was indeed like a brother to her, and even his meek attempts to win her favor were no more dangerous than those of the other boys on the estate who looked her way. In the end he understood his affections could not be reciprocated and she was confident Petyr’s ardor had cooled to the fondness of a sibling — and _he_ had not even been family for true.

“It is,” Benjen continued, “in fact, the only sure way of providing against the connection. Suppose him a handsome boy, and seen by Sansa or Arya for the first time seven years hence, and I dare say there would be mischief. We already know the girls will be great beauties, like their mother. But breed him up with them from this time, and they will never be more to each other than brother and sister.”

Ned spoke at last. “Benjen is right. I failed Lyanna, but I will take care of her son. He and Robb are of an age. They’ll grow up like brothers. He can be like a son to us.”

“The boy is not truly legitimate,” Catelyn said. She considered her next words carefully. “I do not say so out of cruelty. I only state what we all know. His mother’s marriage was a necessary but inferior connection. If we allow the boy to live alongside our children and treat him as our own, there might be consequences if anyone learned the truth of his birth.”

“He is Lyanna’s son.”

“I know that, my dear, and I honor it, but our children must come first. We must keep the distinction between the children as they grow up. We must think how to preserve in the minds of our children the consciousness of what they are, without making them think too lowly of their cousin; and how, without depressing his spirits too far, to make him remember that he is not a Stark. I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my children the smallest degree of arrogance toward their relation; but still they cannot be equals. Their rank, fortune, rights, and expectations will always be different.”

Ned watched her for a moment, his long face solemn and unreadable, until at last he nodded. To Benjen, he said, “You will write to Mr Snow?”

Benjen did so, and in time received a reply indicating that Mr Snow was quite pleased by the offer. He accepted it most gratefully, assuring the Starks of the boy’s being a quiet, obedient child, and trusting that they would never have cause to throw him off.

With everything thus decided, Benjen left for Dorne one month later to fetch his nephew and bring him back to Winterfell to meet his aunt, uncle, and cousins.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon doesn't feel at home at Winterfell.

The little boy, accompanied by his uncle, arrived safely at Winterfell, where he was met by Sir Eddard, whose stern face showed no hint of pleasure at seeing him.

Jon Snow was at this time just ten years old, and he bore no trace of the man who had begotten him. His hair was dark and curly, very like his mother’s, and his gray eyes gave him the look of the North. Ned’s own sons took after their mother, both of them auburn-haired and blue-eyed, but this boy was the very image of Ned in his youth, slim and dark and somber, dressed all in black. He was still in mourning.

“Well now, lad,” said Benjen, gesturing past the gates toward the grand facade of Winterfell. It was a magnificent manor house of ruddy stone, with an arched entryway and two large stained glass windows flanking the door, one depicting a sacred weirwood, the other showing the seven-pointed star: one to represent Ned’s faith and one to represent Catelyn’s. The stained glass panes were new, an addition by Ned (and gift to his wife) in the first years of his marriage, but the oldest parts of the house dated back to the twelfth century. “This will be your home now.”

The boy ducked his head, mumbling his thanks; a shrinking, nervous boy, as quiet as Mr Snow had promised but sadder too. Still, Ned knew better than to judge the boy in his exhausted state. For Catelyn’s sake, of course, Ned would’ve liked his nephew at his best, but there was nothing for it: introductions must be made.

“I am your uncle,” Ned told the boy. There was hardness in his voice, and Jon flinched from it, not knowing that such hardness was simply the way of the North. “You may call me Uncle or Sir Eddard, whichever you prefer.”

A nod.

“Good. You will come meet the rest of the family now.”

“I’ll see you soon, Jon,” Benjen told the boy, who nodded once more before following Ned into the house.

The Starks were a remarkably fine looking family, dignified and handsome as they met Jon Snow. In the years since her marriage, Catelyn Stark’s youthful prettiness had only ripened to a mature beauty, the self-assurance of a woman comfortable in her own skin. Bran lay nestled against her breast; he was getting too big for such indulgences, but he was an easy child and did not fuss, not even when his elder brother Robb asked his mother in a loud whisper, “Is that him?” Robb sized his cousin up with a quick sweep of the eyes: he was bigger than Jon and a hair taller than him as well, but when Jon looked up at him, he offered a wide smile. 

Ned relaxed a little and turned to his daughters.

There were but two years between the girls, but they could not have been more different. Sansa was seven and already very pretty, a cheerful if somewhat anxious girl who trailed after her mother like a mouse after breadcrumbs. Arya, dark-haired and quick to laugh, wanted only to play with Robb outside where she was not allowed unsupervised; more than once, Ned had found her staring out the window, watching in fascination as her brother rode out on his horse Grey Wind. In those moments Arya was very like Lyanna, and that thought disquieted Ned even as it made him love his daughter all the more.

Arya was more enthusiastic than her brother had been, throwing her arms around Jon in a childish embrace that made the boy stiffen and Catelyn’s lips flatten into a line. Sansa, however, eyed Jon warily and did little more than nod her head and dip down into a tiny curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, cousin.”

The little boy meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody, ashamed of himself, and longing for the home he had left, he knew not how to look up or speak to be heard without wanting to cry. He’d been told again and again how fortunate he was that the Starks wished to take him in, and he was painfully conscious of his own ingratitude and selfish misery. Most of all he missed his mother, but he knew even if he were home again in their little house in Dorne, she would not be there.

Perhaps Lady Stark recognized his fatigue or his sorrow, because she ordered a maid to see him to his room and told him to sleep a while. “I too was overwhelmed when I first came here,” she told him. “It will get easier.”

It required more time, however, than either Lady Stark or Sir Eddard anticipated for Jon Snow to reconcile himself to Winterfell and his new relations, though it was not for lack of trying. Robb and Arya made every effort to include him in their games, and Jon tried to enjoy himself in their kindly presence, but he longed for the comfort of the known — for mother and home and even the man he now knew was not truly his father. The house itself impressed and frightened him, and the servants were forever laughing at his inability to find his way through the maze-like corridors. In the schoolroom Mr Luwin seemed shocked at his ignorance, and even Robb had not been able to hide a snicker when Jon was scolded for his near-illegible handwriting. Sir Eddard rarely spoke to him, merely nodding solemnly over meals, and Lady Catelyn never paid attention to him, wrapped up in her duties and her youngest son. Jon even disliked the weather, the cold that bit at his fingers even in his sleep and the gray skies that rarely spilled any sunlight. Every night ended with the boy in his room, sobbing into his mattress and wondering why he’d been sent away.

A week had passed in this manner when Jon was discovered in the midst of one of his bouts of crying. He’d been sitting on the attic stairs, tears spilling down his face, for no more than a quarter of an hour before his cousin Sansa stumbled across him, her eyes going wide at the sight of him, eyes that were bluer than the Summer Sea.

“Cousin,” she said in a soft voice, “what can be the matter?”

He expected her to leave when he silently shook his head, but instead, after a moment of hesitation, she bit her lip and sat beside him, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt before laying a tentative hand on his shoulder and attempting to coax him into telling her what was wrong. Was he ill? Had he fought with Robb? Had Arya annoyed him, as she was always annoying Sansa? At last he could not help but tell her the truth of the matter.

Frowning, Sansa breathed out a soft, “Oh,” before continuing, “I suppose I didn’t think of that, but of course you miss home — and you must miss your mother too. Sometimes I miss Mama and she is only busy with Bran. If she were gone away … ” She looked at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Come, let’s go for a walk and you can tell me all about her.”

Ever the proper lady, Sansa put her hand on his arm and allowed him to lead her onto the grounds, within sight of Mr Luwin, who was sitting in the garden, trying to teach Arya her letters. “Arya will only take her lessons out of doors,” Sansa confided. “She’s a little beast.”

Jon spoke little as they walked, lulled into tranquility by Sansa’s pleasant chatter, but when she turned her face to him with an inquisitive smile, he decided to tell her a little about his life before he had come here. He had no brothers or sisters, save the one that had gone to Heaven with his mother, and he confessed that he had always wished for a brother like Robb. He told her that he missed the warmth of Dorne, the constant presence of sunshine and how his family would take trips to the sea on especially good days. Cheeks heating, he told her that at night what he missed most was the sound of his mother’s voice, telling him stories and singing to him.

Sansa’s arm slipped from him as she faced him, her expression serious. “Shall I sing for you then?”

Without waiting for an answer, she opened her mouth and out came the sweetest of melodies, a sad and beautiful song he did not recognize, about a woman named Jenny, dancing with ghosts. Standing before him, she sang and sang until the song was finished and his own throat was dry. Her smile then went straight to his heart.

After that life at Winterfell became easier. Robb and Jon were fast friends, and soon Jon even had a horse of his own to ride, a white horse named Ghost whom the stable master didn’t like the look of but whom Jon instantly adored. He spent hours in the saddle, and in time Jon learned to ride almost as well as Robb. Jon played with Arya in the playroom, and as she grew older, he himself taught her how to ride. She also liked talking long walks through the wolfswood, and sometimes he would accompany her, the only member of the family who wouldn’t comment on the muddied hem of her skirt. Whenever Uncle Benjen came for dinner, he treated Jon with open affection, and Jon soon found himself asking question after question about his life in the Night’s Watch.

He’d come to trust and revere Sir Eddard’s advice, conscious of his uncle’s honor and wisdom as the Lord of Winterfell, and how much greater a man he was than the man who had raised Jon for the first decade of his life. Lady Catelyn, Jon tended to avoid, for though the woman was never unkind to him, he found her strangely forbidding, so very unlike his own mother. Besides, with four children of her own — five once baby Rickon was born — Jon assumed that Lady Catelyn had no need for another child underfoot.

He saw Sansa often, at meals and on the grounds, and as she accompanied her mother through the house, attending to the business of being of a great lady, but Jon rarely spoke with her. Yet nor did her friendship dissipate after the day that she sang for him. Her friendship manifested in small tokens: books left for him in his room, and a new pair of riding breeches on his birthday, and when she sat at the piano to play and sing for dinner guests, she would always glance at him and smile as if they shared a secret.

When they were fourteen, Jon and Robb were sent to White Harbor College for schooling, and after that they would have three years at university. The young men were best friends and indeed as close as brothers, just as Uncle Benjen had predicted, but when they returned to Winterfell for holidays, Jon could never forget his place. At school, he may have been called Snow, but it was easy to pretend he was a true Stark, as much a part of the family as his cousin. He could pretend that the letters and care packages that arrived at least once a month, addressed to them both in Sansa’s elegant hand, would’ve been sent whether Robb was with him or not. He could pretend that when Sansa wrote that Catelyn sent her love, it was for him too.

The boys always shared whatever biscuits or bags of sweets Sansa had sent with the other boys in the dormitory; to do otherwise was to invite a thrashing, as they had learned when their classmate Samwell Tarly was set upon by a group of boys who accused him of hoarding a cake his mother had sent him. The sight of Sam, curled up on the ground as three or four boys kicked him, was too much for Jon to bear, and he had jumped into the fray to defend the helpless boy. True, he’d earned a blackened eye and a caning from Headmaster Thorne for his troubles, but he’d also made a new friend. With Robb and Sam beside him, Jon felt he belonged.

At Winterfell, however, he was once again reminded that he was but a cousin to the great Stark family, and he would do best to stay to the periphery. No one told him to do so, for no one had to: he knew it was his place, just as it was his place to light his own fire if he wanted one and to keep quiet at dinner parties. Who would want to hear from quiet, awkward Jon Snow?

As the years passed, Jon also learned that he was not to be too familiar with the girls, especially now that they were on the cusp of womanhood, almost the age Jon’s mother had been when she’d been ruined. Jon knew only what little he’d been told by Mr Snow, the man he’d believed to be his father until his mother’s death, but he knew enough to understand that Lyanna Stark had nearly disgraced the Stark name forever and that Jon was the result. This, Jon was certain, was precisely what Lady Catelyn was thinking every time he caught her staring at him with hard eyes, like when he laughed with Arya or presented her with a gift from White Harbor. Lady Catelyn did not like his closeness with her daughter.

It was too late, though: Arya was as much a sister to him as Robb was a brother.

Sansa, however, was not a sister. With her long auburn hair always pinned up in a fashionable bun and her eyes that shone from her face brighter than stars, with her demure gowns that were always perfectly tailored, Sansa was nothing less than the very image of what a lady ought to be. While Mr Luwin despaired of educating Arya beyond the necessities for any gentleman’s daughter, Sansa was a prize pupil: she spoke Valyrian in addition to the Common Tongue and read extensively in both languages; she painted pretty landscapes for her friends and wrote long poetic verses that she would sometimes recite for her family; she excelled in embroidery, knitting, and other womanly arts that Arya despised; she played the piano and the harp, and as she matured, her talent for singing only grew, her voice no longer the thin voice of a girl but the rich and honeyed tones of a woman.

Even without these marks of accomplishment, she was extraordinarily lovely and came from an important family, so all anyone spoke of, as she approached her sixteenth year, was how certain she was of making an excellent match. She herself all but glowed as she imagined the possibilities of her first season out.

Indeed, as predicted, her first season was a smashing success, the crowning jewel of which was her engagement to Joffrey Baratheon, the young duke of Storm’s End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, things are picking up now, and in the next chapter we begin embarking on the meat of the plot. I hope you're enjoying! Comments are ALWAYS appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events conspire to keep Jon at Winterfell.

After finishing at university, Jon planned to ask Uncle Benjen to help get him a commission in the Night’s Watch. He would miss Winterfell, which he had grown to love as if he’d been born there, but he could not remain there any longer. Everything was changing. Robb would soon become his father’s shadow, learning all he could about managing the estate, and in another year or two Arya would be out in society and Bran would be off to White Harbor College. Sansa would be married.

The first time he saw her upon returning home, Jon had congratulated her on her engagement, and she had flushed pink with pleasure when she thanked him. “In truth I didn’t think it would happen so soon,” she told him, a radiant smile spreading across her face. “My lord is so handsome and gallant, he is like a prince from a song. You will see, when you meet him. He is all I could ask for in a husband.”

“I hope so.”

That very night, Jon was determined to make his case to his uncle, but before the opportunity arose, an unfortunate event occurred at Winterfell that conspired to keep him there. 

Uncle Benjen had come to the house for supper, and as he ate his venison and potatoes with the rote habituation of a soldier who didn’t have the luxury of feeding only his hunger, he complained of a headache. “Might be the weather’s turning,” he said, with his usual nonchalance. “I haven’t felt right all day.”

When the family retired to the sitting room to listen to Sansa read from a volume of poetry she’d been given by her fiance’s sister, all seemed well, and Uncle Benjen was effusive in his praise of Sansa’s reading — although it was evident he, like Sir Eddard his brother, had little knowledge or appreciation of poetry. Arya rolled her eyes at Jon, who bit down a smile. He liked to hear Sansa read, but knew Arya had no patience for such things.

Then, in the midst of a long lyric poem about Florian the Fool, Uncle Benjen made a strange sound, something between a gasp and a croak, his body going rigid for a long, terrifying moment before he slumped in his seat. Sansa cried out, letting her book drop to the floor, and Lady Catelyn rushed to his side, holding him upright with little care for how her dress wrinkled beneath his weight.

“Get the children out,” Lady Catelyn said with deadly calm, but Robb was already shepherding Bran and Rickon out the door, with Arya trailing just behind him, tasked with keeping the boys in line. “We must fetch a physician right away.”

“I’ll go,” Sir Eddard said at once.

“I’m faster,” said Robb.

Jon spoke up. “I’ll go. You stay with your mother. She may need you.” 

He ran out into the evening’s darkness, barely pausing to throw on an overcoat as he shouted for someone to saddle Ghost immediately. Then he leapt atop the horse and galloped down the long path away from Winterfell, toward Wintertown, with only the moonlight to guide him.

It was pure luck that Dr Wolkan was home when Jon banged on his door; Jon could only hope his luck would hold. The physician needed only to hear a few words of Jon’s explanation before he snatched up his medical bag and followed Jon into the night.

Upon reaching Winterfell, they found Uncle Benjen unconscious and pale as parchment, and someone had carried him upstairs to a bedroom in the family wing, where he lay beneath a quilt, much too still. Lady Catelyn sat at his side tending him, pressing a compress to his forehead, while Sir Eddard stood just outside the room ordering servants to bring up food and water. When he caught sight of Jon and Dr Wolkan hurrying toward him down the corridor, he told another batch of servants to stand ready to fetch whatever the physician might require.

Jon wanted to stay nearby as the examination took place, but Sir Eddard gave him a stern look and asked him to check on his cousins, and he knew better than to protest.

He found them all gathered in Robb’s room. Bran and Arya sat on the rumpled bed, their eyes red from crying, while Robb stood against the far wall; though his expression showed less devastation than his younger siblings, his clenched his jaw belied how shaken he was by what had happened. Robb hated nothing so much as being afraid, and Jon could recognize when he was repressing the feeling rather than acknowledging it.

On the other side of the room, Sansa sat in a reading chair, Rickon on her knees. She’d circled one arm around Rickon’s belly, holding him firmly in place, but her other hand gripped the arm of the chair, fingernails pressing carelessly into the fine floral silk upholstery that Lady Catelyn had ordered from a trader from Yi Ti. The pattern of blue roses twining across the chair looked almost indigo in the low light.

Robb, noticing Jon in the doorway, steeled himself. “Well?”

“Dr Wolkan is with him, as are your parents. I’m afraid I don’t know anything else.”

Rickon shifted in Sansa’s arms, face hardening as if he might throw himself to the ground in a fit, but his sister’s grip did not ease. In a world-weary voice hardly befitting a boy not yet nine years old, he asked, “Will our uncle die?”

“Of course he won’t, love,” Sansa murmured into his hair. She looked so much like her mother in that moment that Jon felt uneasy, not because he feared Lady Catelyn (though he did) but because he could so easily imagine the kind of mother Sansa would be. She would be starting a family soon, after all, and one day it would be her own child she held in her arms. “Dr Wolkan will see to it that he’s all right. I know he will.”

“ _Liar_.” 

“Arya,” Robb scolded, but the girl’s gray eyes flashed, her anger dagger-sharp (and, Jon suspected, little more than a means of distracting herself from her own anxiety). It was enough, however, to hurt Sansa, who stiffened in her seat as her sister almost snarled at her.

“How would you know that he’ll be all right? Has Miss Perfect received medical training too?”

Color rose to Sansa’s cheeks, but before she could reply, Robb said, “This isn’t the time for this.”

He pushed off the wall and stepped closer to his siblings, addressing them with such seriousness that all at once he seemed older than his years. He was to be the Lord of Winterfell, and it was not hard to see why it was so: beyond birthright, beyond name, Robb Stark carried himself like a lord. Jon admired that self-possession, and envied it too.

“We shouldn’t be squabbling amongst ourselves. All of us are worried and upset, but the only thing we can do now is wait.”

A lock of hair slipped free from Sansa’s bun as she nodded, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You’re right. You too, Arya. I don’t know what will happen. I’d like to hope for the best, though. I believe that our uncle will be well.”

This statement was Sansa in her essence: optimistic to the point of naivete, yet it was impossible to wish her otherwise. Jon caught himself before he could smile at her. If Arya were not here, if Robb were not here, he might’ve asked her to sing a hymn, but such a thing would perhaps prove calming only to him. He’d never spoken of Sansa’s talent with any of her siblings, never beyond simple admiration for her skill.

Jon forced himself to look away. There was space for him between Arya and Bran, so he sat there, gingerly wrapping an arm around each. After a moment he felt them relax against him. Arya puffed out a long breath as she rested her cheek on his chest, and on instinct he reached up to stroke a hand through her tangled hair. She was fifteen years old, yet she still felt like a girl to him, the little girl who ran through the mud and stumbled in the forest and turned up for supper with scraped knees.

When Arya’s tension had faded completely, he glanced up again and realized Sansa was watching him. Their eyes met for the space of a few heartbeats, until her mouth twitched into a faint smile and she turned her attention back to the boy in her lap, who blinked sleepily as she rubbed soothing circles into his back.

It was the longest night of Jon’s life, excepting only one, more than a decade earlier. Around midnight, Lya, one of the maids, brought up tea and toast, her own face wet with tears. “Captain Stark is a good man,” she said as Robb thanked her and took the tray from her shaking hands. “The gods will see him through this.”

In the late hours of the evening, when the yellow light of the oil lamps started to flicker out, the children began at last to drift off to sleep: Rickon and Sansa curled together in the armchair, Bran and Arya each slumped against Jon. Only Jon and Robb remained awake, conscious of their heavy eyelids but each possessed with the determination to remain vigilant until the crisis had passed, one way or another. The nodded at each other, a grim, unspoken agreement.

Eventually, Robb said Jon’s name into the silence. He was seated at his desk, his head propped in his arms, and in the darkness, Jon could only see the silhouette of his auburn curls. His eyes were shadowed and unreadable.

“I’m supposed to leave next week.”

“You are?”

“Aye. I wanted to tell the rest of the family tonight, but now I don’t know if it’ll happen or not. I planned on traveling to the Crag for a fortnight at least. I’ve decided to ask Jeyne Westerling to marry me. Mother thinks it would be a good match, and Miss Westerling is an awfully nice girl. Pretty too.”

Jon swallowed his disbelief before he said something foolish. The Westerlings had been occasional guests at Winterfell for balls and house parties, and Miss Westerling and Robb had certainly always seemed fond of each other, but Jon had thought it little more than a flirtation. Robb flirted with many girls, and he had taken a handful to bed as well, though he swore to Jon that none would fall pregnant through his mischief. There were ways of ensuring such things, he said — but such ways could not always be foolproof, or Jon would not exist.

Was that what had happened with Miss Westerling? Had Robb dishonored her and decided to take responsibility for his actions? Yet as far as Jon knew, it had been months since Robb had last seen any of the Westerlings. He and Robb had encountered them in Wintertown, where they’d come in the hopes that a change of climate would ease Mr Westerling’s gout, but that had been almost a year ago.

Jon’s loss for words must’ve betrayed his unease, because Robb said, “I know it’s sudden,” in the same stubborn tone of voice he reserved for disagreeing with tutors and starting futile arguments with his mother. “But I’ve thought about it, and I see no point in waiting. We are men now. Men need wives.” A pause. “You think I’m wrong?”

He did, but he would never admit it. Men wanted wives, sometimes, or felt pressured to take them; men knew that having a wife had its advantages and its pleasures; but men did not _need_ wives, no more than they _needed_ to take women to bed, and Jon himself had no plans of matrimony.

“I’m surprised, that’s all. Things will be very different soon, once you’ve married … and Sansa.”

He ignored the gleam of copper hair across the room, bright even in the darkness, and the pale, delicate face that in sleep seemed so terribly innocent. He was never meant to see such a thing, for it was the kind of intimate moment meant only for a lover, a husband. Soon such a sight would belong to someone else, and no doubt that man would guard it jealously.

“I’m not sure about him,” muttered Robb after a moment. “Joffrey Baratheon.” At the words, Jon jerked in surprise before remembering that his cousins were slumbering against him. “I’ve only met him a handful of times, years ago, before you came here to us. Our fathers were great friends, before his died in a hunting accident. But even back then, I didn’t much like him.”

“Why?”

“He was an ass. He was a boy younger than me, but already so proud. He sneered at Winterfell and did nothing but complain about the cold.”

“You said it yourself, he was a boy younger than you. Surely he’s changed. If your father permitted the engagement, he must believe Baratheon to be worthy of Sansa. He would never allow her to marry someone beneath her.”

Robb blew out a long sigh, and then, after too many seconds had passed, he said, “I suppose you’re right,” but Jon did not like the strain of doubt in his voice, or the way his head turned toward where Sansa slept and did not turn away.

With the dawn came the news they had all prayed for: Uncle Benjen had survived his fit of apoplexy, and Dr Wolkan assured the Stark family that, despite the man’s lingering weakness and slurred speech, he was likely to recover with time. Tears sprung to Sansa’s eyes, and Jon even caught Bran wiping wetness from his face when Sir Eddard passed this information on to them. “Benjen will stay with us until he is well again,” the Stark patriarch said. “However, you mustn’t disturb him as he regains his strength.”

“I want to see him!” 

Sansa ruffled Rickon’s hair. “Not just yet, little wolf. We must wait until our uncle is feeling better, and then I am sure he will be overjoyed to see you.”

It was three days before any of the children were permitted into Uncle Benjen’s bedchamber, but when Jon made his visit, late in the afternoon, he worried that his uncle would not wish to see him. He must’ve been dreadfully tired, especially after Rickon and Bran’s visit earlier in the day. Even under Lady Catelyn’s supervision, the boys, particularly the youngest, could hardly dull their exuberance.

When Jon entered the chamber, however, Uncle Benjen was sat up in bed, eyes open, clearly expecting him. Only days ago he had seemed so strong and hale, but now he sank into himself, unsmiling, his dark hair almost black against the unnatural pallor of his face. For a moment Jon could hardly believe Dr Wolkan’s assurance that Uncle Benjen was no longer in danger of death.

“Uncle,” Jon greeted.

“Jon. I beg you, don’t make such sad eyes at me. Those eyes … ” His voice was rough but clear. “You look more like my sister every day.”

Whatever Jon had expected Uncle Benjen to say, it was not that, and he ducked his head as he tried to scramble for a response. No one spoke to him of his mother anymore, or of his life in Dorne, and it was easiest to pretend that he didn’t think of it, or her. The memory of Mr Snow had dissolved into the vaguest of portraits, and Jon did not fight to retain it, not with Sir Eddard and Uncle Benjen acting as more of a father to him than that man ever had. His mother was a different matter. He still missed her after all these years, an acute ache that he’d only learned to mask, not to banish.

“I — ” The hoarseness of his own voice brought him back to himself. Now was not the time to discuss such things. “I am glad to see you looking well, Uncle.”

Uncle Benjen’s face twinged into a strange expression: not a smirk, but some poor facsimile thereof. “You and I both know damned well I don’t look any such thing. Gods, I haven’t felt this useless since I was injured in a wildling raid back during my first year in the Night’s Watch. Fell off a horse, broke my leg in three places. I was sure I’d never walk again, but I was on my feet again not three months later.”

“The same will happen now. You’ll be on your feet again soon.”

“You’re a good lad, Jon. Tell me, are you a fool like your brother, eager to wed already?”

Jon had to laugh. “He told you?”

“Ned told me. Idiocy, if you ask me, but maybe I am just sad to see you all so grown up. I remember when you were wee things, and now you’re talking of marriage.”

“Sansa will be married soon too.”

Uncle Benjen’s eyes cut to him, sharper than Jon would’ve expected in his state, but all he said was, “She’s too young. I told Ned he should insist on a long engagement.”

“Will he?”

“He said that it’s Cat’s decision.” A croaking laugh. “No wonder Robb wants a wife. He thinks they are all like his mother, capable of running a man’s life with the precision of a clockmaker.” He considered Jon again. “So you have no immediate plans to ask the first woman you halfway like to marry you?”

Jon shook his head, knowing this was the moment to tell his uncle that he wished to be an officer in the Night’s Watch, but he couldn’t form the words. He couldn’t even think about leaving while Uncle Benjen remained in this state, still so weakened. He thought of the grim set of Robb’s mouth and the shine of tears in Sansa’s eyes, he thought of Rickon’s fear these past days, demanding to be by his mother’s side at all times, and Arya’s directionless anger that would erupt without warning, no matter who was near. He thought of Bran’s quietness; the boy who’d always been so quick to laugh had been solemn and unsmiling. 

He could not go, not now. Not yet.

“I’ll leave you to rest, Uncle Benjen.”.

In the corridor outside the room, Sansa stood waiting, dressed in a simple gray housedress with her bright hair braided over her shoulder. He was reminded, almost viscerally, of that morning she’d caught him crying and had done what she could to cheer him, her strange new cousin who didn’t know how to be happy.

She wrung her hands when she saw Jon, massaging her palm. “I didn’t realize you were with him. Should I come back later?”

Uncle Benjen was tired, it was true, but Sansa was warmth itself, the very sight of her a comfort, the sound of her voice a balm, and Jon knew his uncle would be soothed by her visit as he had not been by anyone else’s presence. “No, you should go in. He will be happy that you’re here.”

Relief flooded her eyes, a smile touching her lips, and then she brushed past him, the scent of her hair, rose oil and lavender, lingering in her wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying this. Comment to let me know if you are. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon meets Joffrey Baratheon, the duke of Storm's End -- and Sansa's fiancé.

Uncle Benjen’s recovery would be slow, but each day his color improved, the dark circles beneath his eyes beginning to fade, and within a fortnight Dr Wolkan was willing to officially declare him out of harm’s way. Although he would still need weeks, maybe months, of rest and recuperation, there was no longer any doubt that he would live. Anxiety loosened its grip on the house, and something like normalcy returned to Winterfell.

With his uncle on the mend, Robb ventured out on his planned journey to the Crag and, as he’d promised to do, returned an engaged man, his grin bright and carefree. No one was more pleased by the news than Lady Catelyn, who enfolded her son into an embrace and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Sir Eddard shook his son’s hand, gruffly telling him he’d done well, and Sansa laughed with delight. “Oh, can you imagine, I’ll be gaining two sisters soon!” Her eyes fell on Arya, her smile fading. “Two _more_ sisters, I mean.”

The engagement vexed Jon. He would never begrudge Robb his happiness, if Jeyne Westerling was truly what made Robb happy, but he could not account for his cousin’s hurry to wed, not when Robb swore up and down that he had never dishonored Miss Westerling; that, in fact, the most that had passed between them were a handful of chaste kisses. 

It was brought to his attention by Bran that Sansa was Miss Westerling’s age and Joffrey Baratheon no older than Robb, but however superficially the situations resembled each other, Jon could not allow that they were at all the same. Miss Westerling was a pretty, well-spoken girl, but her dowry was modest, and she’d come out with no guarantee of making a suitable match her first season. There’d been no mob of suitors awaiting their chance to ask her to dance, or to favor them with a walk through town. Sansa’s case was entirely different. It was only natural that Sansa would become engaged early, for if a man had her favor, he would be a fool to wait, because it was just as like some other man would propose to her before the season was out.

Bran did not seem to follow Jon’s logic, but Bran was a boy just shy of fourteen, and Jon doubted he’d given much thought to the complicated business of courtship. Nor could he appreciate his sister’s exceptional eligibility. Not that Jon had thought much on it either, of course, but he’d read enough novels (some of them recommended to him by Sansa herself) to know how such things worked.

At any rate, a cheerful aura descended upon the house in the wake of Robb’s engagement, one that lasted long enough that Jon again began once more to contemplate broaching the topic of the Night’s Watch — until, once more, Jon’s intentions were thwarted by unforeseen misfortune.

It was some weeks into April when a letter arrived from Lady Catelyn’s sister informing her that Lord Jon Arryn had died. Lady Lysa was, apparently, bereft and requested that her sister come stay with her for a time to help her endure her grief.

In the privacy of their bedroom, Ned and Catelyn discussed the matter. “I would like to go,” Catelyn told her husband. “I haven’t seen Lysa since Rickon was born, and I would be able to see my nephew as well.” Yet Catelyn did not wish to travel alone, and in truth Ned had no desire to be parted from her. After much discussion, therefore, it was decided that they would travel together to the Vale to make their condolences to Catelyn’s widowed sister, and to offer what comfort they could in this time of need. Robb, as the godson of Jon Arryn, would accompany them.

With his brother still convalescing at Winterfell, Ned had few objections to leaving for a time. The steward, Poole, could easily manage the estate in Ned’s absence, and between Benjen and Mr Luwin, as well as the nurse Osha, the children would be well supervised. Ned trusted also in Jon and Sansa’s sense of responsibility. They would keep the younger children from mischief.

Therefore, the three travelers set off early one morning, Lady Catelyn kissing each of her children goodbye before climbing into the carriage and Sir Eddard following her with a nod. 

Robb clapped Jon’s shoulder. “Look after them.”

“I will.”

Beside Jon, Sansa stood tall with Rickon in front of her, her hands resting on the boy’s shoulders, as she wished her elder brother a safe trip.

The first week they were gone, nothing of any import occurred. Uncle Benjen continued to improve enough that he might leave his bed for short walks down the corridor once or twice a day, leaning on Jon for support, and each night Rickon demanded that, in their mother’s absence, Sansa must sing him to sleep. The sound of her voice floated through the house every evening, warm and clear but growing softer and softer until it at last faded away. The weather was fair and Arya spent her days riding, even taking lunches with the stableboy Gendry in order to continue discussing the health and maintenance of the horses. Every morning Arya brushed Nymeria, her sleek thoroughbred, until her coat gleamed, and fed her apples from her own hand. Only at dinnertime did they all come back together.

It was after dinner one evening when Jon, having retired to the library for a few hours of quiet before the night was through, found himself interrupted by Sansa, who’d come to fetch a book bound in crimson leather. “Lysene fairy tales,” she explained with a smile. “I’ve run out of stories to tell Rickon and need some inspiration.”

On an impulse, Jon asked what she knew of Robb’s attachment to Miss Westerling. They had not spoken of it, except in general terms, and he wondered if Sansa had better insight into Robb’s decision.

“You are surprised by it?”

“I am.”

“Miss Westerling is an awfully lovely girl.”

“I don’t dispute it,” Jon said, “but I did not realize Robb was so fond of her. I had not thought them especially close at all.”

A sly smile stole over Sansa’s face. “Never tell me you’re in love with Miss Westerling yourself!”

He denied it vehemently.

Her laugh was sweet, a shower of sunlight that brought heat to his face and another bolt of heat through his gut, and when she slapped playfully at his shoulder, his cheeks only grew warmer. “It is not so unbelievable. She is pretty and kind and intelligent, and certainly you are every bit as suitable to marrying a girl like Jeyne as Robb is — perhaps even more so. Your temperaments are more compatible, I think. I would never wish my brother heartbreak, of course, but I would like to see you make a match worthy of you some day. Even if you must fight Robb to win her.”

“I do not know that I will ever marry,” Jon confessed.

“Nonsense. Whyever not? You are — ”

“Just a Snow.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “You are the nephew to Eddard Stark, the lord of Winterfell, and cousin to the future lord of Winterfell. You must learn to think more highly of yourself, Jon. You are handsome and good, and I swear to you we shall find you a girl to love and marry.”

The words stirred some nameless pain in Jon’s chest, but all he said was, “I have thought of joining the Night’s Watch.”

“The Night’s Watch?” Her eyes widened, her smile slipping. “You can’t! They’ll send you off who knows where, and we’ll never see you. Even Uncle Benjen had to go live way up north for many years before he was stationed in Wintertown. No, you mustn’t go. I forbid it.”

“Oh, aye? And what shall I do instead? Become a poet?”

“You shall do anything you like. You are a respectable man from a respectable family. You might join the clergy. Eventually the local parish will need a new vicar.”

Jon laughed at that, a hard laugh that contained little humor.

“Very well, not the clergy, but you might learn law, or join the navy if you feel you must fight. They at least will not require you to swear ten years of your life away, denying yourself a wife and children for the duration of your vow. Don’t be so hasty to be alone. You will want a wife one day, and there is no guarantee she will be patient enough to wait around for you for years.”

Sometimes she could be so childish, so _naive_. It was folly to imagine he had anything like Robb’s prospects, fatherless bastard that he was, and he’d never been allowed to forget it ever since coming to Winterfell. He could not imagine the woman who would agree to marry him, certainly not one who ran in the same circles as Sansa and Miss Westerling. He could never offer her a household of the sort she deserved, not as a soldier or a clergyman or a lawyer; he had no money, of course, and no title, and not even a name of any importance to offer a wife. No woman longed to be simply Mrs Snow. It was a fool’s dream.

Yet he saw no point in arguing with Sansa. He blew out a heavy breath.

“I won’t join any time soon, I promise that. Not until Uncle Benjen is well again.”

“Promise you’ll wait until I’m married.”

He wet his lips with his tongue, already regretting the words he would say, but still he continued, “Aye. Until you’re married.”

 

In the second week after the departure of Sir Eddard, Lady Catelyn, and Robb, Jon was with Uncle Benjen when he heard a sudden flurry of activity downstairs. Someone had rung at the door, and now the soft footfalls of servants on the stairs were unmistakable, their voices lowered to whispers. Jon shot Uncle Benjen a confused look, but he merely shrugged, so Jon pulled the door open and detained a passing footman.

“What is happening? Who’s calling?”

“The duke is here,” said the boy, a petite young man with straw-yellow hair whom Jon knew to be called Devan. “Lady Sansa’s intended.”

Jon froze for a long second, as if he’d forgotten how to breath, before at last he lowered his chin in a curt nod. “Thank you,” he said, dismissing Devan. “I apologize for interrupting you.”

When he turned back to Uncle Benjen, the older man was watching him carefully, his lips parted as though he meant to say something. Instead, however, he stayed quiet, his dark eyebrows bent in a look of consternation. 

“I don’t like that he’s here with Sir Eddard and Lady Catelyn away,” Jon said finally. “I’m not sure it’s entirely proper.”

“I agree.”

“Should I … ?” Jon bit the inside of his mouth hard, letting the sentence go unfinished. He should do nothing. If anything, it was Bran’s duty to see to the situation, for he was the eldest of Sansa’s brothers still present. Besides, Sansa herself would never do something improper. He needn’t worry. It was not his place. It wasn’t.

“Go,” commanded Uncle Benjen and Jon — regardless of whether it was his place or not — didn’t need to be told twice.

Downstairs, he was informed that the lady Sansa was taking a turn in the gardens with the duke while the servants prepared a tray of tea and cakes; her maid, Anna, accompanied them as chaperone. 

“Did she know he was visiting?” Jon asked Bran, inexplicably breathless. “Have you met him yet?” Bran simply compressed his mouth into a thin line and jerked his head toward the windows.

They were easy to spot through the broad-paned windows at the rear sitting room: Joffrey Baratheon’s golden hair gleaming beneath the sunlight, Sansa’s intricate bun copper-bright, and though they faced away from the house, Jon could see how Baratheon reached for Sansa’s hand, and how she leaned nearer to him, the blue of her dress brushing against his dark jacket. The maid trailed several paces behind.

Jon put his back to the scene and debated whether he ought to go back upstairs, to tell Uncle Benjen that nothing was amiss, nothing Jon could change at least, but then he noticed Bran squinting out the window, a troubled look passing over his face.

“I think something’s wrong,” Bran said, but the sentence wasn’t halfway out of his mouth by the time Jon turned around in his seat, his heart leaping into his throat.

The couple stood at an angle now, so that Jon could see them both in profile, and he realized at once that Baratheon was not holding Sansa’s hand in a tender caress but rather gripping her by the wrist. He stood close, too close, and even from a distance Jon could see the hard set of the boy’s jaw, and the way Sansa’s face had gone blotchy and red as it only did when she was upset. The maid, who’d stolen a few steps closer to her mistress, was crying.

Jon couldn’t say how he made it outside so quickly: he was out of the sitting room, down the hall, and in the garden before he knew it, and yet before he could open his mouth to demand Baratheon take his hands off Sansa, before he could even register how Baratheon had invaded Sansa’s space even further, there was a shout, a blur of movement coming from the direction of the stables, and then the duke was on the ground, being pummeled by a figure almost half his size.

“Arya!” Sansa gasped out.

Reckless, brave, wonderful Arya. As her fist connected with Joffrey Baratheon’s jaw, Jon almost smiled, but he was too aware of Sansa’s growing panic and the maid’s wails; too aware also that once the duke gathered his wits he would likely have few scruples fighting back even against a mere slip of a girl like Arya.

Jon rushed forward to lift Arya bodily off of Baratheon and set her down behind him, placing himself himself between the duke and the ladies, including the maid.

As Baratheon rose to his feet, he swore loudly without regard for the company. He was a handsome young man but he wore an ugly expression on his face, his lip curled in a sneer, and although he was taller than Jon, he was slimmer too, and Jon suspected it wouldn’t take more than a well-thrown punch or two send him sprawling back onto the ground. Jon’s nostrils flared, imagining it, but he felt a hand tugging on his jacket sleeve, and he heard Sansa’s voice murmuring, “Please, _please_ don’t.”

Baratheon’s eyes darted to where Sansa stood behind Jon’s shoulder and narrowed. “Thank the gods I’m free from you Starks, you’re all just as savage as my mother warned me. She told me I should just write a letter but I wanted one last kiss before I left.” His smile was feral, and Sansa’s fingers clenched more tightly to the fabric of Jon’s coat. “Better be careful, Sansa, or I’ll tell everyone what your bitch of a sister did to me. I’ll tell everyone what a little whore you — ”

Only Sansa’s hands clinging to him _hard_ held Jon back from knocking the villain into the dirt, but Baratheon must’ve seen the intent in his eyes, because he closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth.

“I hate this pathetic, dirty place,” Baratheon said finally. “I’ll be glad to never see it again.” With that, he turned on his heel and marched away, and though all Jon wanted to do was follow him and wring his neck — and though he knew that was precisely what Robb would’ve done if he were here — instead he made himself turn around and gather Sansa into his arms, conscious of her breath gasping into his neck and her tears wetting his shoulder.

Later, after Arya had been praised and scolded for daring to attack a duke, and after the poor frightened maid was sent to bed early with a cup of tea, Sansa explained to her siblings and cousin what had transpired in the garden that afternoon.

Joffrey, as she called him, had arrived quite by surprise, for he’d made no mention of visiting in the last letter she received from him, and she assured the family that if he had told her, she would’ve insisted he wait until her parents or Robb had returned. With him here already, however, Sansa hardly felt she could send him away, and — she looked miserable as she said it — she truly was happy to see him.

At first he simply seemed as if he wasn’t paying attention, his mind elsewhere as she told him of the death of Jon Arryn and the recovery of Uncle Benjen, and his answers had been monosyllabic when she asked after the health of his family. That’s when at last he pulled her close and began to speak, his tone indicating boredom more than anything else.

It took her a moment to realize he was breaking off their engagement, that when he began speaking of a better opportunity for himself he meant another woman. There was a Valyrian princess on the continent, a young widow whom everyone in the ton said would be traveling to Westeros soon to arrange a marriage. Much of her family lived in Dorne and it was rumored that they wished for a better position in the Westerosi government. Sansa had even heard of her, this Daenerys Targaryen, and it seemed Joffrey intended to make an offer for her. The daughter of a lord was no longer good enough for him.

Bran frowned. “I’m sorry, Sansa. You deserve better than him.”

“He’s an idiot,” Arya agreed.

“Thank you,” Sansa said primly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should probably start writing some letters.”

Jon followed her into the hallway, stopping her with a gentle hand on the elbow. “Sansa. Are you all right?”

“I will be.” Her eyes were still a little red, but she lifted her chin defiantly. “You must think me so stupid, to have been fooled by him as I was.” She ignored his protestation. “If he’d only wanted to jilt me, I would’ve been hurt, I would’ve been angry, but — ” She swallowed hard, her gaze darting away from a moment before returning to meet his. “You must never tell Robb this. I don’t care about me, but Robb would kill Joffrey if he knew.”

Jon would likely kill Joffrey too, given the chance, but he nodded.

“He told me,” she began, her cheeks coloring deeply, “that I could still be his mistress.”

It ought to have been impossible: the gall of it, the sheer insult, to say such a thing to a lady, to say such a thing to Sansa Stark. Yet remembering Joffrey’s sneer and his petulant threats, Jon did not doubt that he had done so. He clenched his jaw.

“Of course I refused him.” She needn’t have said it, for he already knew, but then she added, “That made him angry.”

The words reminded Jon of how Joffrey had wrapped his hand around Sansa’s wrist, and how the maid had been weeping in fear, and he glanced down to where the cuff of her sleeve meet the smooth white skin of her hand. Tentatively, he reached for her, and, much to his surprise, she allowed him to take her hand, turning it to face palm up as he nudged the sleeve up her arm just a little.

A bruise in the shape of a man’s fingers was darkening around her wrist.

“I should kill him,” Jon said, exhaling a long breath, unable to look away from the purpled mark. Despite the harshness of the words, however, his touch remained gentle.

“No, cousin. It would certainly be no favor to me, for I simply wish to never speak of him again. I trust that you can respect that. I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t wish to dwell on it.” With that, she slipped her hand from his grip. “Now, I really must write those letters.” She ascended the stairs quickly, not once glancing back.

The following morning, the butler, Cassel, asked one of the footmen to walk into town despite the rain in order to post two letters: a thick envelope from Miss Sansa that was addressed to her parents in her elegant handwriting, and another, thinner missive, for Mr Robb, made out in the dark, neat hand of Jon Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is honestly just SO fun to write. The past two chapters I've deviated quite a bit from Mansfield Park because I wanted to build in some other issues and conflicts, but in another chapter or two we'll be meeting this story's version of the Crawfords, an attractive, charming pair of siblings who move to the neighborhood and stir up all kinds of lust, love, and jealousy...
> 
> (P.S. Don't worry, I would never have Dany and Joffrey marry, especially this Dany, who's closer to her AGOT self than her later fire-and-blood self. Joffrey basically just shot himself in the foot.)

**Author's Note:**

> As always you can also find me on tumblr (@noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth) if you want to chat more about Jonsa, GOT, or any of my fics. :)


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